(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Future Bible Heroes will celebrate the release of “Partygoing,” their first new recording in 11 years, with a concert at Club Helsinki Hudson on Monday, July 1, at 8pm. The witty pop trio on the recording is celebrated songwriter Stephin Merritt, his Magnetic Fields bandmate Claudia Gonson, and composer/synth-wizard Christopher Ewen. The live ensemble is Gonson, Ewen, Shirley Simms (also of the Magnetic Fields) and Anthony Kaczynski. (Due to ear sensitivity, Stephin Merritt will not be able to perform, but the Hudson local looks forward to attending the show.)

“Partygoing,” featuring Future Bible Heroes’ signature mix of dance-floor electronica and ridiculously melancholy ballads, reflects much that has gone on the musicians’ lives since the group’s last recording, “Eternal Youth” (2002), which is being re-released in a package featuring all the group’s previously recorded material, called “Memories of Love, Eternal Youth and Partygoing.” The band itself describes its current songs as “about aging, death, heartbreak, rejection and austerity.”

The core of Future Bible Heroes is Stephin Merritt, Christopher Ewen, and Claudia Gonson. Merritt and Ewen are the songwriters, with Stephin writing the melodies and lyrics and Ewen handling most of the instrumentation. Gonson and Merritt divide the vocals between them.

The New York Times has likened Stephin Merritt both to Cole Porter and the Brill Building songwriters, albeit one with a very contemporary mordant streak. Merritt has another band called the Gothic Archies, for which he reportedly saves material that is too depressing even for Magnetic Fields. The latter group’s album, “69 Love Songs,” was widely hailed by critics as a latter-day “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” or “The Wall” in its epic sweep.